


Take My Hand

by phrenique



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, BB-8 as a dog, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Light Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-14
Updated: 2018-02-14
Packaged: 2019-03-18 12:09:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,738
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13681398
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phrenique/pseuds/phrenique
Summary: “You have kind eyes,” she lets the sentence hang unclosed, her eyebrows raised in a wordless question.“Ben,” he whispers it as if he’s confessing to some unbearable sin.“You have kind eyes, Ben.”For the prompt: "Rey lost her dog, Ben finds it." from yellowdress





	Take My Hand

**Author's Note:**

  * For [yellowdress](https://archiveofourown.org/users/yellowdress/gifts).



> Thank you for your prompt and detailed wishes, yellowdress, they definitely fired up my imagination. I only hope to have done justice to a lot of what you were expecting for in a story, and also, most importantly that you enjoy it!

The flyer is taped to a tree. He hates that.

That the tree in question is a handsome old elm from a whole row of them throwing blessed shade over his shoulders as he’s trekking home is beside the point. Kylo’s a T.A., he’s impartial.

His hands move slowly as he takes great pain to detach it with care from the roughened bark. It’s loose enough that there isn’t the smallest sign of damage in the end. For either medium.

The colors are crisp and the paper feels new beneath his fingers. Kylo studies it intently, the detailed picture, the text and numbers slinking off into his brain of their own accord, curse of his eidetic memory.

Flyer in fist, he resumes his walk home. Not twenty feet away, he finds a nice metal lamppost with free space to spare. Delicately, he places the paper in an advantageous position, below his own line of eyesight, since he’s often told he resembles a hulking giant. 

There! Tape liberated from his messenger bag and a fresh round of it later, he’s done his good deed for the day. His mother would be proud.

Then come a creak and a squeak, a whine and a yelp, and his quiet sense of satisfaction shatters. His eyes roving, Kylo searches left and right, and when he finally looks back to where he came from, there it is.

A big bush just behind him is quivering, tips to stems. A Ribes Aureum, to be precise, its golden flowers caught by some inner turmoil, scattering petals and pollen all over the ground beneath. 

There’s not a living soul on this alley, in this park, as far as he can see. On the other hand, it’s midday, the sun is shining, and Kylo is a man of science, so ghosts are … completely out of the question.

He approaches the golden currant warily, from an angle, while he strains to spot the origin of all the hubbub. Abruptly, the mini-quake ceases and Kylo’s steps falter. Peace again reigns supreme in the park. He can no longer hear the birds chirping over the increasing heartbeat pulsing in his ears. 

From a gap in the shrub’s many branches, an eerie eye appears to stare directly at Kylo. Half blue and half brown, it sparks a lightbulb of recognition in his mind. Relieved from the nervous tension, his mouth is first to cross the finish line.

”Blossom!” He yells out the dog’s name triumphantly. Before he can be properly vexed with his extreme behavior, he’s answered by a howl, and then the medium-sized quadruped launches itself straight at him.

Kylo ends up in the dust. In his brand new suit which right now is more like brand new ruined. Getting sloppy licks all over his face from an overly friendly husky dog that’s shedding all over his black dress pants. He’ll never admit it to anyone under pain of torture, but his eight-year old sulking self is having a ball with all this newly found canine affection.

The adult, though, needs to do unwanted responsible adult stuff, so he gets up reluctantly, keeping a firm hand on Blossom’s collar. She seems content to wait and see what he’s up to, as he awkwardly searches one-handedly in his bag for something he can fashion into a leash. Ah, bungee rope, of course!

Husky now safely trotting at his side, Kylo cuts through the park again, this time in the exact opposite direction to his house. He doesn’t need the flyer for directions, the address is etched inside his mind, like so much trivia, dormant until he finds it a use.

It’s a short trip in theory, but it’s made longer by the utter disharmony between Kylo’s step pattern and Blossom’s rhythm. He's dragged to the left, to the right, he’s left standing near a variety of trees, while Blossom investigates the grounds. He clearly does not understand how dogs are walked, or maybe huskies are in a class of their own.

When they reach their destination, a new problem crops up. Kylo isn’t exactly a people’s person - he’ll stare blankly at the individual trying to engage him verbally until he or she tires and goes away. How could that be conducive to being a T.A. is his congenial mother’s favorite nag, but Kylo makes it work like a champ, if you’ll excuse the lack of modesty.

However, this qualifies as entirely out of his routine. 

The house looks acceptable, of course of unimaginative design, but well-maintained. The front yard is big, lush and green. Kylo pauses at the threshold between grass and sidewalk, undecided. He worries at a pebble with his foot, while he crafts and destroys plans of engagement in his head. 

Blossom keeps pulling on her makeshift leash, but he won’t budge, so she lays on her belly as far as she can go to nuzzle at some fragrant patch of dirt. 

“You only have to take the first steps, life will take care of the rest,” is Leia’s standing advice to him. He whispers it to himself as he starts moving towards the house entrance, Blossom sledding ahead, pulling him along.

And life provides - his mother is entirely right, thinks Kylo, when he catches sight ahead of a sturdy metal pole. He tests its endurance and then ties a strong knot out of the cord, making sure Blossom gets enough leeway to sprawl comfortably.

Now if he could only telepathically ring the bell. He decides on a strategic retreat to an out of sight spot, until the dog’s owner realizes she’s back, which hopefully will be soon. After all, someone could steal Blossom, when Kylo went to so much trouble to bring her back. 

His careful plans are all for nothing when the husky decides to finally make her voice known. Stones might break away from mountaintops directed by her high-pitched mournful tone, he wouldn’t be surprised. Here though, it just leads to a wide-flung door and an almost-matching shriek as a girl, a young woman more-like, throws herself joyfully at Blossom.

Kylo watches them for a while, mesmerized by such an explosion of sheer glee from both sides. The girl doesn’t resemble anyone he’s ever met before. She’s something new, someone unexpected. Kylo isn’t fond of change or mysteries. Also, he’s late.

He's already halfway down the street, when from behind comes a shout that freezes him in his tracks.

“Sir, wait!” It’s the girl. She and her dog are practically sprinting towards him.

“Oh,” she says when they’re finally face to face, a mere couple of feet separating them. Her eyes look big and round with surprise. Kylo can only focus on his dirtied up suit all of a sudden. He won’t be intimidated by a pint-sized sprite. 

He firms his chin. “What is it? What do you want?” 

Uncertainty flickers once and dies in her gaze.

“I’m Rey.” She holds out her free hand. “Thank you for bringing baby Blossom back.”

Her hand is small with strong-looking fingers. Short-filed nails, unpainted. Kylo bets himself it would feel like fresh water between his burning palms.

“There’s also the matter of the reward.” Gentility delicately oozes all over her posh British accent.

Kylo’s laugh hurts his chest, bursts out ugly and stunted. This girl is something else. 

“What would I care about your paltry reward? Best invest it in a stronger leash for your dog.” 

He anticipates her outrage, nearly yearns for her to storm away faced with his scorn. But despite the tightness rounding up her features, her stretched hand remains steadfast in its offer. What good manners! How his mother would approve of her, he thinks bitterly.

Seconds pass and each one feels slower to Kylo than the one that came before. Blossom shifts nervously around the girl’s legs, an impatient whine breaking and starting in her throat. Kylo keeps his eyes trained on the husky’s red-orange coat, even as he feels the girl’s gaze on his face by the licks of fire it ignites under his skin. He doesn't blush and he's never had more pride in his defective capillaries.

“You can pet her if you want,” the girl says, forcing his attention back on her, “You keep staring at her, like she’s the most fascinating creature you’ve ever seen.” She slides the same hand that was offered to him into Blossom’s fur and shows him what she means.

Every year from his seventh till his fourteenth, Kylo had hoped to wake up on his birthday - Christmas, for the rest of the world - and find a puppy in a basket under the tree. He’d begged his mom, he’d played it as-cool-as-he-was-able-to-while-still-asking-for-it with his dad, he’d even broken through his shell of shyness to tell his estranged uncle Luke all about it. There was no puppy. Not on his birthday, not on any other day of the year. 

Eventually, Kylo’d stopped asking. For love, for companionship. For dogs. He grew up and material things became easier to obtain on his own. But a dog, he’d never gotten himself one, and now he’s wondering why.

He could get one. Maybe. If he gets the hang of the walking and this petting thing.

Blossom’s pelt is coarse and slickly smooth at the same time and she obviously likes being pampered. She’s nearly cross-eyed with pleasure, slumped on the ground, her back legs chasing an imaginary rabbit, as Kylo follows the girl’s example on how to properly pet a dog.

He’s smiling, and that is the weirdest thing that’s happened this afternoon yet. He looks up at the girl, driven by some odd impulse to share this moment, this unaccountable glee with her. He forgets to breathe.

She’s beaming. Light is pouring from her eyes, from her grin, from the white sparkle of her teeth, as if a bit of the sun had hidden itself inside her and it’s finally shining through. There is nothing Kylo would regret of the world, if in this very moment, they were somehow plucked from this earth and caught in amber, like ants trapped in forever together.

“I wouldn’t mind dying with you.” Kylo closes his eyes in despair even as he finishes his never-should’ve-been uttered thought. His regret is instant and intense; he no longer wants to drive the girl away from his side and this is an enormous faux pas. He didn’t even really, literally, mean it. But the script, his enemy, the acceptable rote of social interaction has escaped him again, and he spoke too soon, too much, too real. He just hopes the girl won’t call the cops on him; his mom, who’s town mayor, would have his hide for this.

The hand slipping into his is unexpected. It’s meant to soothe but instead, fires sparks that tingle all through the ends of Kylo’s fingers. The girl’s gaze is fond. Her pink mouth opens and words drip absolution over his conflicted conscience:

“You’ve certainly a flair for the dramatic. I bet that sounded better in you head than out loud, right?”

“I didn’t mean…”

“I know you didn’t _mean it_ mean it. It’s a lovely thought, to be sure, but there are better. You just have to find them,” the girl continues, her hand still holding onto Kylo’s, from within. He’s starting to learn the feel of it.

“You think it’s lovely?”

“I think the sentiment behind it is lovely.” Her shining eyes never waver, there are no shadows in them where untruths could hide. 

“You’d be surprised on how few people actually think that way," Kylo agonizes over his next word, before he steps across the threshold and launches himself in the uncharted waters that surround them. “Rey.”

It’s an acknowledgement, an invitation and she doesn’t let it pass unrecognized. “Then probably not many people know you. The real you, if you’ll forgive the cliché.” She winks at him and her smile blooms even larger. “You have kind eyes,” she lets the sentence hang unclosed, her eyebrows raised in a wordless question.

“Ben,” he whispers it as if he’s confessing to some unbearable sin.

“You have kind eyes, Ben.” She takes away her hand to comfort a suddenly grumbling Blossom, who while still lolling under the sunlight like a big cat, would also like a bit of conversation. Minutes must pass, but they're fleet-footed, since he’s too busy drinking her in. His shiny girl, ripping bits from her inner brilliance to pass on to him. For the first time in long years, he yearns to show someone else his own streak of light. To show her Ben.

“Penny for your thoughts?” Rey turns her attention back to him, as she shifts uneasily on her flexing legs. The world falls back into hard focus, and he realizes what a strange picture they must make, both of them crouching over a dog, baring their souls, like there was no other living being outside of their comfortable bubble.

He rises to his own height, wincing a bit at the rapid pull on his back muscles. He squares his messenger bag and resists the urge to fret over his wrinkled-and-worse suit. 

It feels like he is on the verge of a momentous proposition, and he’s known Rey for less than an hour.

Here he stands: a man of science, aloof to the pleasures, the weaknesses and vicissitudes of common every day life; above and beyond his peers, the ones he understands nothing about and who return the feeling in triplicate.

There he conceals, from himself-included: a man who hungers, full of need for someone to take his hand and accept him for what he is, for that someone to know beyond reason what he is and demand even more.

He wavers between his two selves, flickering like a new candle that’s being lighted for the first time. You only have to take the first steps, his mother’s voice, ever-present, chimes in, weighing on Rey’s side of the balance. Life takes care of the rest.

And how he wants the first steps on the untouched snow freezing his soul to belong to Rey!

He draws even closer to her, her eyes poring into hers. “I was thinking that I didn’t expect to find you today.” 

I didn’t even know I was looking for you, he longs to add. YOU in capitals, you underlined, the theorem and the proof. The words crowd readily at the back of his throat like champagne bubbles behind a tightly wound cork. He swallows them down; Rey’s known him for under an hour.

She gets up slowly, shakes off slumber from her legs. Her features loosen, settling in dreamy contemplation, as her gaze falls to the ground. She pulls lightly on the makeshift leash.”Baby Blossom’s got the best nose. Tracker blood, you see. She’s never run away and she's never led me astray in her life, so it was quite unlike her to get herself lost.” 

Rey looks up at him once more, her quick glance lengthening, lingering; he feels the touch of it like a soft caress moving slowly over the planes of his face, exploring. “Then when she finally came home to me, she brought me you.” 

Her laugh is short and low, intimate. “People might very well shun us both for being soppy and melodramatic, I guess, but your truth deserves mine, so here it goes.” She breathes deeply. “I first glimpsed your face not even an hour ago and I felt the earth shift itself under my feet. I’ve been waiting for this feeling all my life, Ben. That’s why I ran after you, that’s why I’m standing here in front of you, telling you all these things that should scare anyone away, since it’s too soon, and it’s too new, and… ”

Rey’s cheek is warm silk when his lips dare touch it with a barely-there kiss. She quiets, still looking at him with doe eyes, brimful with what he now recognizes as hope. She’s sowing her hope in him, willing it to flower in a future them.

Ben’s answer comes easy and fearless as he offers Rey his hand, and she accepts it. No words are offered or given back, but neither of them seems bothered by their absence. They stroll ahead hand in hand, Blossom between them, towards the park where, this afternoon, Ben found the starting spark of something wonderful, hiding underneath a big bush of golden currant.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading this. I hope you enjoyed it!


End file.
